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Blessed be the watercress that binds

“Standing in the sunlight laughing.”

— Van Morrison

Despite approaching dotage, when summer blooms a quiver of freedom runs through my body, reigniting the possibility of unstructured time and bare feet. Memory also has it that the best of summer involves friend seeking and neighborhood investigations and adventures involving water.

Such activities often serve as templates for the inner work that surely erupts as we get older — if we are lucky. I reveled in such reflection last weekend amid a tender gathering in the name of my longest sustained and most excavated friendship.

Her first born’s wedding brought me to tears. She has long been a source of full life, both in joy and sorrow, as I, no doubt, have been for her.

We have loved each other beyond the unsolicited ideas for the other’s best interest.

We have laughed, though possibly not as often as we should have.

She threw up the sash on my under confident head and heart. Decades later, I’m sure that she was the only emissary who could have done so.

In reviewing the personally edited film of our first encounter, I see the promise of summer and a trip to the creek for her mother to source watercress (the oldest known leaf vegetable). The resulting mud fight and clean up aftermath bring on a very long talk. We connect some far flung dots that smack of compatibility.

The binding result has endured for 45 years. I still seek her beautiful smile. All of which brings to light, in my mind, my menu choice for a summer sandwich with watercress which I selected as the first meal in route to the festivities for her boy and his bride.

I know that she’ll say it’s only watercress, but for me, it’s a renewing symbol of what my mother-in-law’s best friend once offered — “Old friends should hold hands and roll down the hill together.”

In expectation of the reunion with mon amie, I place an order for just one half.